Drag - Fun or Fundamentally Insulting

[hellosumner]

Triggered by the strictly line up thread I wonder how people feel about drag.

YABU - Drag Queens are incredibly witty and talented and they are not insulting women by dressing as an exaggerated version of the female sex. It’s funny and clever.

YANBU - Drag is woman face and any other type of comedy based upon stereotyping a group in an exaggerated manner would be seen as unacceptable.

Weird, creepy, crass and often misogynistic and offensive. Very much womanface using what they perceive to be stereotypical over the top, hyper sexualised female modes of dress and crude jokes. Just horrible.

When I was in my teens I once went to a nightclub where the doormen were drag queens. I found them fucking sinister and terrifying.

Absolutely this. Was about to post the same thing.

When The Vivienne (RIP) was on Dancing on Ice he seemed very gentle and inoffensive.

It really isn’t just big wigs and glitter is it.

Is La Voix like that all the time or does he drop the act when out shopping etc? So surely in Strictly he will just be who he is in real life. We have soap actors on Strictly who have played the same character for years but they come on as themselves not as their character

Good point!

YANBU

I absolutely despise everything about drag. It makes me feel nauseous!

That’s a high ratio of YANBU 660/810

Easy enough to opt out if you don’t enjoy it.

Except these days it isn't though. Drag acts used to be confined to adult entertainment venues... now it's definitely more mainstream. Hence inclusion on this year's Strictly and, prior to that, Dancing on Ice and countless other shows. So it isn't easy for people to opt out at all. Those who do, will immediately find themselves dubbed bigoted and transphobic.

Are there any women who dress up as exaggerated men with huge cocks bulging out of tiny pants and call themselves Hooge Pross Trait or Erect Isle DysFunktion?

If not why not?

@Shedmistress and then they carry on that persona into other things too. As I posted earlier in the thread why does a Drag Queen have to be a Drag Queen in Strictly, why are they not the person without the costume?

And if there was a woman doing that, would they be invited on to Strictly?

I fail to see how making nasty and exaggerated parodies of characteristics that society associates with women is in any way ‘challenging societal norms and stereotypes’?

Csn you explain how that works?

That’s nothing compared to the Drag Dace contestant who walked the runway parodying a woman with a double mastectomy complete with bag of amputated breasts and gore.

Drag now just seems to be a licence for men who hate women to publicly escalate their hate for us.

Don’t know, but you should trademark those names pronto 😄

Not putting it in the same category is blatant misogyny. Internalised or not.

It’s all campness and flamboyance. I don’t view it as having anything to do with women at all.

Some drag artists are genuinely funny

many use it as a way of degrading women and sadly these acts seem very prevalent at present

we women simply need to be put back in our place every which way men choose to do this we are encouraged to accept or we are bigots it feels like it’s from all sides at present often in the disguise of humour, art and progressiveness

Kind of agree with this. I don't consider sketch comedy and panto drag really. They are a differernt thing altogether. I quite like a good cross sex role, whether men as women or vice versa, they can be very funny and pointed.

Drag drag, which is about sexuality fundamentally, makes sense in some settings, nightclubs with a gay male audience mainly. Sometimes it's done well and sometimes (often) it isn't. I don't think it has much to do with women really, in a way it's more about masculinity.

Why something so niche is so mainstream is the real question imo.

I mean even pantomime dames are based in misogyny - from a time when women weren't allowed to be in theatre. Why are we still keeping that going? Like it's some warm and lovely old tradition? When really women just didn't have the rights.

I have to say I watched an episode of Drag race and it was the most dire load of old shit I have ever seen in my life. And honestly I'm not that fussy. It was the most stupid, boring, nonsense and I didn't even make it through one episode.

I wouldn't be sad if drag died a death, I agree it's right up there with blackface even if some people aren't overtly offensive. I'm amazed though at people suggesting it's anything other than men pretending to be women - you don't need huge fake tits to be camp or flamboyant. But I guess there will always be drag apologists grasping at straws.

This element is weird,, it's like an actor came on pretending to really be Sherlock Holmes or something.

Pantomime dames are about topsy-turvey, which is why the male lead used to be played by a woman.

Yes but women playing a traditionally male role is very different from a man dressing up as a woman and playing a role. I saw Romeo and Juliet at the globe and there was a black woman playing Mercutio and she was brilliant. A bloke dressing up as Juliet with a wig and fake tits would not be the same thing at all.

I don't understand how dressing up as a woman with a huge wig and fake tits and pretending you're talking about your life as a woman is about masculinity?

@TempestTost it’s not like the former Go Compare chap came on as the Go Compare persona, even though that is what most people would have known him as